The terminal aesthetics of good error handling

Most developers treat the error message as an afterthought. But the moment of failure is exactly when the user is most vulnerable, and that's when what you write there matters most.

##What a good error says

• →What happened, in human language, not just the code.
• →That it's not necessarily the user's fault.
• →What they can do now: one concrete next step.

I did exactly this on my own portfolio: the 404 is a shell error, with ENOENT and an exit code, but underneath there are always two directions you can go next.

$ cd ~/works/this-page
cd: no such file or directory: this-page
# → cd ~        back to home
# → ls ~/works  browse the works

Let the form match the product. On a terminal portfolio, even the error is a terminal. Consistency itself is reassuring.